An Unlucky Draw
by nivlac
Summary: A magical deck of cards is never to be trusted. A half-blood from another realm of existence found this out the hard way...


**What is wrong with me… just read this damn thing. I couldn't stop myself.**

There was so much _nothing_ all around him. The horror of his situation terrified him more than any other. He turned his head left, and then right, all that was visible was a blue sky in every direction with several white, fluffy clouds surrounding him.

He just had to draw from the deck.

Oros made a mental note to never _ever_ draw from the deck ever again. The Deck of Many Things was never to be trusted. EVER. The Iron Mountain monk noted that he was not falling, merely floating in the middle of the air. Most likely due to the fact that there was nothing with gravity immense enough around here to draw him towards it.

The results of the card he drew simply had to be one of the worst ones… He had to fight an elder air elemental and _win_ in a minute, or he would be taken here.

The plane of air. If any of his other companions had drawn that card instead of Oros, they would surely be dead within a matter of days. With no food or water to support them, they would not last long. Thankfully, Oros had no need for food or water. Sure, he could partake of those needs if he desired, but he suffered no ill effects. He could not starve to death, and he thirsted not.

No doubt his trusted companions were already planning to find a way to free him…

Actually, to call them trusted companions was a bit of a stretch. Oros was almost certain that none of them really cared if he lived or died. Which was fine, his transgression against his ancestors previously (And by extension the party) was unforgivable.

He left them to fend for themselves as he selfishly sought vengeance against the man who wronged him. That ended up being a mistake, as Hukate had manipulated him into breaking his vow of eternal silence. His ancestors invoked the worst penalty to his order. His arms and legs had been bound in chains connected to pure white ringlets that were pierced through his spinal cord restricted his movements.

Only until he could redeem himself could these chains be removed, however, before he got the chance, he was zapped to another plane of existence. That would make redemption much more difficult surely. He flapped his blood red feathered wings experimentally. He was born with these wings, but he was never really able to learn how to use them effectively.

Sure, he could glide with them, but he could never truly fly. Since he was trapped in an alternate dimension where he was surrounded with nothing but air, all he could do was practice. If he figured out how to fly here, then he could find the exit much faster than if he were to simply flap his arms and legs violently.

It would likely look more like he was swimming through air. His wings lifted him up slightly, but not far enough. He flapped them out of synch, the first step, would be getting them _in_ synchronization. Oros spent an entire day like that before he could actually get the hang of it. As it turned out flapping your wings was more difficult than it appeared. The muscles in his wings burned with the effort, but he only managed to fly up (Or what he assumed was up) about half a mile.

How pathetic of him, he had no excuses for this poor performance. There was no gravity, why was this so hard? He shook his bald head, his pure white eyes looking above him. They widened considerably when he saw a small, five foot wide circle shaped portal. Reality seemed to bend around the swirling exit, contorting the blue sky around it.

A brief thought entered his mind.

How was the plane of air constantly illuminated if there was no sun anywhere in sight? Oros shook his head, that was yet another thought that currently did not matter. The other side of the portal on the other hand revealed a starry night sky. Could this be the portal to the material plane? Maybe his luck had begun to turn!

He flapped up to the open maw of the portal, and stuck his hand through it. Cool air bit at his skin as his hand gripped soft grass. Oros pulled himself upwards, and came out on the other side of the portal as he lay on all fours. He coughed as he adjusted to the air of the material plane. It was much... heavier than what he remembered, he had only been in the plane of air for a day, and he already was noticing the difference in the quality of oxygen.

The Plane of air was pure of any pollutants, so breathing it in felt almost as refreshing as a cold drink of water. He stood up, and surveyed his surroundings. He stood on a large hill overlooking a forest to his right, and what appeared to be a sort of small village to his right. The little buildings looked akin to… cabins, and had numbers on them and features that set them apart from the others.

One was topped with sharp looking wires and surrounded by a trench with wooden spikes jutting out of the earth around it. A decapitated boar's head hung over top of the door, and Oros frowned. Orcs perhaps? That suspicion was mostly wiped away however, when he saw the other cabins. Some were constructed of white marble with beautiful statues posing in front of them. One cabin had an owl suspended above its doorway as opposed to the boar head on the cabin across from it.

Every single one of the cabins had its own characteristics that separated it from the others, and that was when Oros noticed the shape that they were arranged in. Like a semi-circle that parted at the bottom in opposite directions. He looked at the area surrounding the cabins, seeing several other buildings, such as stables, a much larger house closer to the center of the camp, and what appeared to be a large pavilion full of wooden benches that held a table between them.

Oros also noted the lake on the northern end of the camp, the full moon reflecting off of the still water. On another end of the settlement was a large arena like area. A large circle of dirt was in the center, surrounded by several white steps that could also serve as seats for spectators. Oros looked behind him, and saw a massive pine tree. It had to have been very old to grow this large, though something about it seemed… young.

The monk looked back down at the camp. He needed directions, and standing here was not going to accomplish anything. He marched down the hill, and froze when he noticed the green mist that was leaking out of an open window on the top of the large house. He narrowed his eyes at the spectacle, and backpedaled away when he noticed that it was rapidly approaching him. The chains restricted his movement, so he wasn't able to move as far back as he would have liked too. The green mist flowed down the top of the building and made a beeline directly towards Oros, who was still trying to flee away from it.

It reminded him of an acidic mist, and he did not need his flesh melted off. There was no situation that warranted for that. He heard that one of his companions got covered in acid once, but while he survived he lost every item he had, he would not be running about naked.

"Stay back!" He yelled to the mist.

The mist did not comply with his understandable request, and surrounded him. He could barely see anything, but Oros was at least grateful that it didn't begin melting his flesh. The smell was like that of a rotting corpse, and the stench almost caused the hardy monk to gag.

" _Y-you do not belong… you… the prophecies of the future are no longer real… because of just your existence here. I see no more of the future… my ability to foresee it… has… vanished. Leave, leave, leave…"_ An elderly feminine voice said, its voice echoing all around him.

"Leave me be specter. I know not what you speak of." Oros stated, raising his fists.

" _The future is all gone… There is nothing…"_ It said. _"Lives will not stay their destined course… the sisters of Fate themselves faded as soon as you came into being here…you fit not into the weave… what summoned you?"_

"An unlucky playing card, and what are you speaking of spirit? What are the Sisters of Fate?" Oros asked his brow furrowing.

" _I can speak no further… seal the shattered earth…my spirit leaves this earthly body… fix the terror that you have surely wrought."_ It said.

Suddenly, the mist dissipated, and nothing remained. Oros frowned deeply, and marched back up to the top of the hill. The portal that led him here had sealed, Oros clenched his teeth, and ground them together. This was the material plane, but he wasn't sure if it was _his_ material plane. He looked down again, and noted that a small crack had appeared where the portal had been previously.

He squatted down, and inspected it further. His eyes widened when the crack shifted down the hill, in the opposite direction of the camp. The crack rippled down the hill, nearly splitting it wide open as it expanded even further. By time it reached the forest, it had widened to the point where the trees were beginning to become swallowed. The sound of shattering earth could likely be heard by the denizens of the camp below him, if not for miles around.

The hill shook, and Oros struggled to maintain his footing as he stared at the destruction before him. As it continued onwards towards the horizon continuing to widen.

…

…

…

Tiffany had always wanted to visit the big apple, just simply so she could climb the steps of the Empire State building. It seemed like a fun thing to do. It seemed odd, but the idea of climbing a staircase appealed to her. If she had to spend an afterlife climbing an eternal staircase before she reached her destination, that wouldn't be so bad.

A lot of people looked at her funny when she spoke of such things. Her frilly red hair bobbed as she shook her head to stave off the sleep. She could rest once she reached a hotel, then it was straight to the Empire state building. She stared down at the massive city below her, with all of its shining lights. Growing up in a small town, she'd never even seen a skyscraper, and some of these buildings threatened to knock the plane out of the sky as it approached the airport.

She smiled, but that smile was quickly wiped away as she saw the entire city split in _half_. Tiffany let out a scream of terror as several buildings were collapsed; the sheer thought of the amount of casualties baffled her. Why was this happening? What kind of earthquake was this? And it continued onwards at an impossible speed, stretching far past the horizon. The death toll had to be in the thousands, if not millions! The crack was ten miles wide and it was growing the farther it went!

"Oh… oh my god." The pilot stated on the intercom. "Oh Jesus no… no…" He repeated.

Several passengers were awakened by the massive sound that resonated beneath the plane, when they looked down to the earth, they shouted in confusion and terror. Tiffany simply remained silent, beholding the terrifying sight before her. So many skyscrapers fell into the darkness of the newly made trench… but strangely enough, the Empire state building stood tall. A single round island of concrete supported the skyscraper, but what was odd about it was… the island that the building was on… floated.

She shook her head again, this had to be a dream, no, a nightmare. If it was a nightmare… she wanted to wake up.

…

…

…

So the earth was sundered, every living being felt the world shake. The crack sped across the land, widening the further and further it went. It didn't stop when it reached the west coast of the United States either. It went further, splitting the ocean and causing massive tsunamis that buffeted the coasts of several countries. Then it reached the western end of Asia, splitting the super continent in half as water flooded through the gap after it.

It went through China, the Middle East, and Europe. The Tsunami's that the quake caused all but flooded Japan, killing most of its people. It then reached the eastern end of the U.S.A once more, but the crack had begun to shrink. Oros stared in horror at the trench of shattered earth before him, but flinched when he noticed that another, smaller crack reached just behind his feet. The monk turned around, and gasped. The monk fell to his knees. It circled the entire planet.

Several nuclear warheads had detonated once they hit the bottom of the trench, killing off several survivors that may have somehow survived the fall. The bases that held them collapsed from under the weapons of mass destruction, leading them into a long free fall.

At the end of this cataclysmic event, five billion people lay dead, not just from falling into the depths of the now three hundred mile wide crack, but the after effects as well. The Yellowstone super volcano erupted with it, covering much of the remains of the country in ash as a result of this event, and scorching all of the lands surrounding it with lava. The ash fall was visible thirty minutes later by people not directly in the blast radius. Almost every island nation had been destroyed by the tsunamis the upper half of Africa and the lower end of South America fell into the sea.

Oddly enough, to some survivors, it seemed like the sea was struggling against itself. Waves would pull back and then move forward again. As if some force was trying to prevent the waves from crashing against the earth. As a result, large portions of land had been spared, but others could not be prevented from joining the ocean.

Despite the massive damage to the city, New York was spared the most damage. The tsunamis seemed to go out of their way to avoid hitting the big apple. Some people called the event Ragnarok, however, there was no massive six legged wolf prowling about, and it wasn't the Christian version of the apocalypse either.

Unbeknownst to all, this was the result of a monk drawing a stupid card from a stupid deck of many things. This was not planned, not destined to happen, and yet it did.

…

…

…

Oros wept silently for the loss of live that was caused. The grief in his heart knew no bounds, and he pounded his fists against the earth in fury.

 _What had he done?_ So many had died because of his mistake! Why was there even a portal out of the plane of air? He'd rather spend a near eternity trapped in there than have this happen! The tears that streamed down his cheeks glowed iridescent silver, dripping onto the ground. That green mist said that he had to find a way to fix this… but how? How could one being possibly fix this on his own?

He heard a massive commotion in the camp below the hill, and several children had exited the cabins. They varied in age, some were younger than he was when he was taken to his monastery, and others looked to be in their teens. They looked to the top of the hill, and spotted Oros, his blood red wings shining in the moonlight. He stood up from his kneeling position, and wiped the tears from his eyes. He stared down at them, and felt a tapping on his shoulder.

Oros instantly turned his head, and widened his eyes when he saw the ghostly presence of his sensei, who was long dead. His green ethereal form seemed to blink in and out of existence momentarily and then finally solidify. He stroked his long ghostly beard and the moonlight shone off of his bald head, his loose fitting robes drooping down nearly to the ground.

"Oros." The spirit said. "I bring news of how you can go about redemption. Several beings and items of great power followed after you."

"Master! Please tell me how to undo this grave error!" Oros begged, bowing to his sensei's spirit.

He hadn't seen his sensei's spirit since the incident that bound him in the chains.

"Certainly child. Do you remember the deck from which you drew that unlucky card? It has followed after you here, though I and your ancestors are unable to track its exact whereabouts. You must find it, and draw from it. If the gods of luck smile on us, you will draw a card that will grant you a wish. You should know what to do if you do draw that card yes?"

Oros looked to the ground, and then back up to his sensei.

"Yes. I know what to do. What if I do not draw that card?" Oros asked.

His sensei stroked his incorporeal beard.

"Draw until you get it." The spirit said.

Oros frowned.

"That isn't how the deck works. I can only draw twice more from it." Oros said.

His sensei frowned back.

"Then get someone to draw the cards after you. As many people as necessary until you draw the card that will undo this." His sensei told him.

Oros nodded.

"I understand what I have to do. I will gather a party together to help me find it." Oros said, nodding.

His sensei smiled, and then vanished into the wind. The monk took a deep breath, and looked back towards the denizens of the camp.

Perhaps there were capable warriors among them? Not all of them were that young after all.

 **Fucking WORLD ENDER. Besides that, Oros is based off of my Pathfinder character. If you guys have a character from Pathfinder or regular Dungeons and Dragons, pm me, I'll see if I can work them into the story somehow. Note that evil characters are welcome as much as good ones.**


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